DOLPHIN could facilitate earlier cancer diagnoses

MIT researchers have developed an imaging system that can simultaneously image in multiple wavelengths of near-infrared light so they can ascertain the depth of particles emitting different wavelengths, and detect tumours made up of a couple of hundred cells deep within the body. They want to adapt DOLPHIN (Detection of Optically Luminescent Probes using Hyperspectral and diffuse Imaging in Near-infrared) for early diagnosis of cancers that are currently difficult to detect until late stages. Using DOLPHIN the researchers were able to track a 0.1mm fluorescent probe through the digestive tract of a living mouse, and were also able to detect a signal to a tissue depth of 8cm, much deeper than any existing biomedical optical imaging technique. Existing optical imaging techniques cannot image deeper than about 3cm into tissue, and CTs and MRI scans cannot identify tumours with any certainty until they are about 1cm in size.
Neelkanth Bardhan, a Mazumdar-Shaw International Oncology Fellow, said: “In terms of practical applications, this technique would allow us to non-invasively track a 0.1mm-sized fluorescently-labelled tumour, which is a cluster of about a few hundred cells. To our knowledge, no one has been able to do this previously using optical imaging techniques.”
Angela Belcher, the James Mason Crafts Professor of Biological Engineering and Materials Science at MIT, member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and head of MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering, said: “We want to be able to find cancer much earlier. Our goal is to find tiny tumours and do so in a non-invasive way.”